Washington County

Dan Guzy researched navigation on both branches of the Potomac River, the Shenandoah, Antietam and other tributaries from the earliest known use of the river to transport people and goods until the beginning of the construction of the C&O Canal in 1828.

More than 530 canal boats which carried cargo on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal were registered between 1873 - 1876 and 1878. In 1851, 223 boats were registered. William Bauman transcribed these lists.

This collection covers newspaper advertisements of slave sales and runaways from Western Maryland, together with opinions about slavery and emancipation . Newspaper articles from Hagerstown and Cumberland 1790 to 1864 are included.

The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, 78 miles of which are located in Washington County, provided a variety of employment opportunities and a transportation corridor for the county's produce and minerals from the 1830s to 1924.

Antietam National Cemetery, 1867 lists the name, company and regiment, grave number and place of death of those Union soldiers buried in Antietam National Cemetery at the time of its dedication in 1867.

In 1905, Mary Titcomb, the librarian of Washington County Free Library, Maryland, sent a wagon pulled by two horses, laden with 200 books, to travel the county. So began the system of rural free delivery of books.